Elin Hilderbrand - Summer People

You’re making a big deal out of this, Beth, Arch said.

No, I’m not.

The guy’s crazy about you. He always has been. He’ll think you look beautiful whatever you wear.

Shut up, she said. Why aren’t you jealous?

Why should I be jealous? I got you in the end, didn’t I? I’m happy to go. I want to gloat.

That was Arch through and through. Never jealous, only proud. That was the perfect way in which he loved her. At the party, Beth drank too much, laughed too loudly in conversation with Rosie Ronan, and stumbled on her way out, catching the heel of her sandal between the flagstones of the walk. The ride home was the closest she had ever come to telling Arch the truth about David, but blessedly, she’d kept her mouth shut. Back at Horizon, Arch put her to bed with two aspirin and a glass of ice water, kissed her forehead and deemed the night an enormous success.

Long ago, Beth had decided that every man, woman, and child had the right to one secret. One piece of private history, and hers was David Ronan.

But what did she care about David Ronan now? The way she reacted probably made him think she was still in love with him. She should find him and try to act like a normal person. Set things straight.

Beth abandoned her cart and hurried through the store until she spotted the red of David’s shirt in the dairy section. She stopped. He was buying-What? Milk, half-and-half, two packages of Philadelphia cream cheese. She moved in front of him.

“Oh,” he said. “Hi.”

“I’m sorry I acted strangely back there,” she said. “I don’t know what’s wrong with me.”

“You’ve been through a lot,” David said. “I was just thinking how awful it must be for you. And the kids.”

“And Arch’s mother, and Arch’s partners, and his clients, one of whom narrowly escaped death row. It amazes me. He was just one person but he left behind such a big hole.”

“He was a good man,” David said. “I feel lucky to have met him.”

“That’s nice of you to say.”

“I mean it, Beth.”

She looked at him and realized that she’d been avoiding his eyes this whole time. He smiled. His face was as familiar to her as the faces of her own brothers. She’d devoted so many hours to studying it when she was younger.

“Okay, listen, let’s not make excuses. Will you bring your family for dinner on Friday?”

He frowned. “Friday?”

“Are you busy? It would be great if Winnie and Garrett could meet your girls and we have another boy their age staying with us this summer. It’ll be fun. We’ll cook out?”

“Thanks for the offer, Beth, but I…”

“You won’t come?”

“Well, you haven’t let me explain.”

“Okay, explain.”

He put his hand over his mouth and wiped at his lips. “I’ll explain on Friday, I guess. It’s too much to go into here. What time would you like us?”

“How about seven?”

“Fine. We’ll see you then. Friday at seven.”

“You remember the house?”

“You’re kidding, right?” David asked.

“Right,” Beth said. How could he forget Horizon, the house her father threw him out of so many years ago? David left her with a little dance step, a wave and a half-turn in which he gathered up a dozen eggs and disappeared around a display of meringue cookies. Beth took a minute to regroup. The Ronan family was coming for dinner. Perfect. Right? Beth hoped she hadn’t made things worse by trying to make them better.

She found her cart and resumed shopping. She went back to produce and selected eight russet potatoes and three pounds of asparagus. An additional head of lettuce. Rib-eye steaks, butter, sour cream. Some Ben & Jerry’s. She wasn’t a gourmet cook like Rosie Ronan, but that was okay. She wouldn’t go to any great lengths; she would wear jeans and flip-flops. Having old friends for a cookout was no big deal. It was just one of the things you did in the summertime.

As soon as his mother got home, Garrett realized something had happened at the store. Or maybe it was just the effect of Nan-tucket on his mother’s brain. He heard the car swing into the driveway and then the car horn and his mother proclaiming, “Kids, I’m home!”

Garrett was the only one around. Marcus and Winnie were swimming together and Garrett watched them from the deck, the two of them trying to do the butterfly against the tough surf. Garrett wouldn’t admit to any racist feelings except for when it came to Marcus and his sister. Winnie fawned all over the guy, which wasn’t surprising considering how mentally unstable she’d become, but Garrett was damned if he were going to stand by and let Marcus fuck his sister. He was the man of the house, now. He’d kill Marcus before allowing that to happen.

Garrett walked through the house and out the front door to help his mother with the groceries. She looked different. She looked manic, overexcited; like a kid who’d eaten too much Halloween candy.

“Thanks, sweetie. Thanks a million. You’ve been such a big help today. Really, I mean it. You’ve been an angel.”

“Mom?”

Beth sailed into the kitchen and flung open all of the cabinet doors. “I forget, every year, where we put things. I guess it doesn’t matter. We can make it up as we go along!”

It occurred to Garrett that his mother had been drinking. Or maybe she’d popped the pills that Dr. Schau gave her (their mother was the only one to get pills). Garrett unloaded the bags and handed groceries to his mother. She was moving around the kitchen like she’d been shot out of a pinball machine. Bouncing around with all this extra energy.

Garrett is very sensitive to other people’s moods, Mrs. Marshall had written on his end-of-the-year student evaluation. He is tuned in to their needs, desires, and intentions. It was true, he thought. He could read other people in a matter of seconds. Some people might call it intuition, but that word sounded too feminine. Garrett preferred the word “perceptive.” Like a detective. Or a writer. Or like Dr. Schau, who could tell what you were thinking before you even opened your mouth. Right now, watching his mother, Garrett knew something had happened at the store. He pulled out the steaks.

“Why so many steaks?” Garrett said.

“Steaks?” his mother cried out. She knit her brow as though she didn’t know what he was referring to, as though it was easy to forget what must have been a hundred dollars worth of steaks in one of the bags. Just repeating that word, “steaks,” was as good as lying.

“Why so many?” Garrett asked.

“Well, because,” his mother said. “There are four of us and we’re having four dinner guests on Friday.”

Garrett dropped his ass into a kitchen chair. It squealed, but thankfully did not break. “ Dinner guests?”

“Before you get all worked up, let me tell you who it is,” his mother said. “It’s my friend David from growing up, his wife, and their two teenage daughters. You know, girls, girls, girls. I thought you’d thank me. It seems like all your friends here are either at camp or their parents moved to the Hamptons.”

Garrett closed his eyes. More teenagers he was supposed to connect with. He couldn’t believe his mother. She barely kept it together in front of her family; what made her think she might make it through an evening with other people? The topic of Garrett’s father would inevitably come up. His mother would drink too much wine and start to cry. Maybe Winnie, too. The guests would sit dumbfounded and uncomfortable, the teenage daughters wishing they were anywhere but trapped in this house.